They're usually sung at the beginning of the dance, when doing a 'walk round', kind of like an introduction, eg 'Oh where and oh where has my Highland laddie gone? He's gone morris dancing with his tartan jock strap on.' Sometimes it's used to link the dance with the tune, sometimes it's unrelated. Here in NZ we start Vandals of Hammerwich with a verse from Flick the little fire engine! Don't ask me why. Anyone else do that or was it invented here? Robyn

Letting the musicians know how the tune goes? Hah! We're always the last to find out what dance they're doing!!

As a musician, I find remembering which tune is which rather awkward without some words as a clue... I always remember Trunkles by 'Ev'ry morning have a cup of cawfee', thanks to Grace Jackson of Midnight Capers Morris from Vermont...!

at school -mid 1950's - we danced to a recording of Nellie the Elephant and 'There's a state of war on the nursery floor'

Nancy Dawson 'Of all the girls in our town, the black the fair the red the brown'

The tune that sounds like the floral dance - 'Apple pie is a very pretty tune'- I'm not sure that that is part of the words or just a memernerermnemonic for the tune.

'The rose bush' is Beethoven - I think thats for a dance of the same name - or maybe the rose tree?

And lots more but the memory is not what it was - I might have some notes somewhere if anyone is interested. Being unable to read dots ( I tried, but it just doesn't work for me) I naturally look for some other method of retaining a tune.

I understood that almost ALL of the Adderbury dances were to songs, possibly from a time when they didn't have a musician.

This may be the same for many other traditional/extinct sides. In fact, almost all of the dance tunes are known as songs anyway. The assumption is that the dances were done to what the musician could play.

(Anybody know a song called Trunkles? Did anyone establish what a Trunkle IS?)

gnomad - I think that one might be Bucknell. The version of "Room for the Cuckolds" I used to see (the now sadly defunct) Pomfret Morris do also has -

"Oh me dear, I do feel queer. Must be all of last night's beer" "We drink all day, we drink all night, because it's our fertility rite" "Beecham's pills a penny a box. Beecham's pill will cure your...ills"

Les, you are giving morris dancers credit for a lot more organization than is possible! Who decides what the next dance will be? Who knows? The Harrisville (NH) morris women have one song that inspired the dance one of our members wrote years ago, "Durham Jail" We always start by singing,

Oh, never in the livelong day, You'll not find me back in Durham Jail Oh, never in the livelong day, You'll not find me back in Durham Jail"

I don't know if I can shed any light on the reasons for the snippets before the dancing, but many of the names of Cotswold dances which aren't traditionally done with words suggest the tune comes from a song air which was popular at the time it was first used for the morris. Songs like "Such a getting upstairs I never did see" obviously gave rise to the dance tunes for "Getting upstairs" - as this was a silly music hall song from the 1800s it is obviously not as old as morris dancing itself. "The Gallant Hussar" is another obvious example.

I get the feeling that most morris tunes were just popular songs or airs at some time or other, were absorbed at some point or other and often bent to fit the dances because people knew them anyway.

And Trunkles means Trousers. I don't know of a song of that name though.

Our side dances the Lollipop man but we don't know all the words so the second bit gets muttered; Oh, the lollipop man has a great big stick, He ...... Some of the versions are a bit off colour. Can anyone supply correct/polite words so we can do it properly? Thanks, Robyn

Animaterra - Jez Lowe wrote Durham Jail - it has a really bouncy tune, so I'm glad to hear it's being danced to.

Yes, I've generally heard songs being used to introduce Cotswold or molly dances - but Flowers of May, in their early days, sang "I must,I must improve my bust, it really is no joke. I must, I must improve my bust or they'll think I am a bloke" before dancing Runcorn. If you've seen the arm movements for Runcorn, you'll understand why they improve the bust, but if you ever saw Flowers of May, you'll understand why this probably wasn't needed.

Alas - no, my lovely Oakwood & Saltarelle C/F have made no appearance since January when they were pinched by the world's most embarrassed theives (I wish I was there to see their face when they opened the cases to find 2 melodeons).

However, the good news is that I was fully insured for such an occurance and am now in posession of a new Oakwood model 7 (many thanks to Martyn, Gordon and Ian at Oakwood for letting me buy the prototype) and have upgraded my C/F to a 2.5 row model.

Sorry to reply so off topic - back to the nitty gritty - still no further info from me re the singing in morris I'm afraid.

I used to dance for Bucknell, we did "Trunkles" and "Room For The Cuckolds", the only dance I remember us singing to was the beginning of "Shepherd's Hey", our dance off was "Bonny Green" but we never sang "Hey diddle diss, let's go and get pissed" as heard on "Son Of Morris On"....

I never knew what a "Trunkle" or "Trunkles" was, although I did have a lovely old cat who I called Trunkles (his sister is still alive, 17 this year)